2023-06-28 15:32:02
“Put words on these evils and make visible the invisible that hurts”. The remarks in the preamble to the report “Health of women at work” prove the importance of dealing with the subject and the need to highlight it. For six months, the four senators Laurence Rossignol (PS), Laurence Cohen (PC), Annick Jacquemet (UC), Marie-Pierre Richer (LR) multiplied the hearings and the trips, in particular in Brittany region in advance on this field, to finally lift the veil in a cross-partisan way on this theme. According to the senators, “the lack of recognition of the physical and mental burden of women’s work is thus at the origin of women’s disregard in the design and implementation of occupational health policies”.
The first problem, pointed out in the report, is that of the lack of statistical data. Although the law of August 4, 2014, relating to real equality between women and men, has obliged employers to set up gender indicators for health and safety at work, senators have faced many disappointments. “Gendered data remains very incomplete. Especially when they exist, these data are too little used,” explains Annick Jacquemet. “However, without knowing, how to prevent and how to repair? “. By way of example, the four senators point to the Directorate General for Labour, which “was not able to provide the rapporteurs with data by sex on the distribution of sick leave or the monitoring carried out by the prevention and Health at work “. In addition, the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam) compiles gender statistics without exploiting them. “We need to objectify and quantify what we see empirically in society,” advances Laurence Rossignol. “Our job is to study the most seriously so that what we deliver is not questionable”
The first axis of the senators’ proposals therefore aims to respect the commitments made by the 2014 law in order to study occupational health by gender. “Fears of discrimination hinder the implementation of the gendered assessment of occupational risks provided for by law,” the report notes. “Differentiating does not mean discriminating,” adds Laurence Cohen. The senators propose to train professionals in the gendered approach to data, to use them and enforce the mandatory systems for building a single gendered occupational risk assessment document (DUERP).
Better risk prevention
“We have noticed that this supposed neutrality leads to a focus on the average man, the male worker. An average man is not physically built like a woman. For sectors that are almost exclusively female, we find the same difficulties,” explains Annick Jacquemet. His communist colleague Laurence Cohen even argues that some companies, which she visited on behalf of the commission of inquiry into the shortage of drugs, did not have shoes suitable for women. Unequal situations that have many consequences on women’s health. Where men overwhelmingly face “visible and life-threatening dangers”, in the words of the report, women conversely suffer invisibly. “60% of people with musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are women. MSDs have been the number one occupational disease for 20 years”, reminds Marie-Pierre Richer. “Where we thought that occupational diseases affected men in the construction industry, we realize that women are the first victims”. MSDs, or musculoskeletal disorders, include all joint diseases, such as low back pain or carpal tunnel syndrome.
Worse still concerning cancers. While women experience a “gendered segregation of tasks”, “feminine positions, such as cleaning or caring”, require night work. According to an Inserm study in 2018, night work would increase the probability of developing breast cancer by 26%. Moreover, according to Annick Jacquemet, “this question is not taken into account under the question of gender, whereas this subject is more centered on women”. On average, women develop cancers more prematurely than men during their working years. Thus, the question of post-cancer professional reintegration and that of the adaptation of the post arise first and foremost for women.
Faced with this situation, the second line of proposals centers on the development and adaptation of prevention. Elsewhere elected officials want to inform young people in middle or high school about the working conditions of women, strengthen the human resources dedicated to the prevention of medicine or labor inspection, review the list of hardship criteria or strengthen sanctions against employers. When the law is not respected, dissuasive sanctions are needed,” warns Laurence Cohen. “When you touch the wallet, it hurts”
Taboos of sexual and reproductive life
“To be a woman is to have periods, natural pregnancies or pregnancies linked to medically assisted procreation, and possibly miscarriages. Being a woman is not a pathology. However, being a woman brings it,” explains Laurence Rossignol. In professional life, menstrual cycles and the desire for pregnancy can be linked to unequal brakes. Although discussed, menstrual leave – set up at the town hall of Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis) – did not pass the test of the delegation’s debate. However, the senators are considering the inclusion in the list of long-term conditions (ALD) of endometriosis, a vaginal disease affecting one in ten women. This inscription in the list would thus make it possible to eliminate the financial losses of the women, who must stop working because of their menstrual pains. “A recent study published in Canada shows that women declaring themselves suffering from endometriosis say they are absent for 17% of their working time. They report a decrease in their work capacity of 41% and a drop in work productivity of more than 46%,” the report notes.
With regard to the desire to procreate, the four senators are looking at both the natural way and the medicalized way. According to the report, 20% of women lose or leave their jobs because of pregnancy. A negative stigma of pregnancy, combined with discrimination at work, leads women not to exercise their rights. “Employers do not necessarily inform them. How surprising,” laughs Laurence Rossignol. It therefore proposes better communication on these rights. For the medical path, 84% of women explain that the medical path affects their professional work. Thus, the response of the report is to better adapt ART to women’s professional constraints.
“The menopause is the last taboo”, denounces Laurence Rossignol. “However, it affects 500,000 women a year and 100% of women over 55”. The consequences are “generally transient: estrogen deficiency, hot flashes, sleep disorders, headaches, urinary disorders, memory disorders, bone risk…”. Thus lifting the taboo on this natural stage in the life of women would involve adapting the working conditions of postmenopausal women to this symptomatology.
The 23 recommendations will be brought into legislation “after the senatorial elections”, advances the president of the delegation Annick Billon. They will then be presented to the government.
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